02 June 2011

The 2011 Carnival Parade took place in San Francisco last weekend. Telstar Logistics appreciated the gracious charm of the scantily clad dancers we saw parading up our city streets, but -- surprise, surprise -- it was the cars that really grabbed our attention.

There was a whole pack of them: Lowriders and classics from a few of the local clubs. They cruised and bounced and bounced and cruised up 24th Street in the Mission District, and in the glorious sunshine they were fun to behold. The photos shown here are just a sampling, but if you want more, just view the complete photoset:

31 May 2011

Last weekend, Telstar Logistics flipped on NASA TV for a few minutes to unwind. We don't normally watch NASA TV as leisuretime entertainment, but we heard via the Twitter that Space Shuttle Endeavor was doing some formation flying with the International Space Station somewhere in Earth's orbit, and that sounded nifty. So we tuned in to watch.

The spectacle was hypnotic. Endeavor was flying 620 feet directly below the ISS. The shuttle's cargo bay doors were open, and the orbiter floated effortlessly above Oceania and Western Australia.

It was beautiful. And given that this is Endeavor's last flight ever, the event also prompted a quiet moment as we absorbed the spectacle for all it represents -- because soon the sight of manned space shuttles drifting above the planet's surface is not something any of us are likely to ever again see in our lifetimes.

Backdropped by a night time view of the Earth and the starry sky, the Space Shuttle Endeavour is photographed docked at the International Space Station on May 28, 2011. The STS-134 astronauts left the station the next day on May 29, after delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and performing four spacewalks during Endeavour's final mission.

It wasn't a fast drive, nor particularly long, but it will be remembered in the history books as one of humanity's greatest off-road adventures. After traversing almost 5 miles of Martian terrain, NASA's Spirit rover has fallen silent, and the agency thinks the vehicle has reached the end of its journey.

Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the rover's solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. NASA checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact attempts ended today, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable conditions.

"Our job was to wear these rovers out exploring, to leave no unutilized capability on the surface of Mars, and for Spirit, we have done that," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Spirit drove 4.8 miles (7.73 kilometers), more than 12 times the goal set for the mission. The drives crossed a plain to reach a distant range of hills that appeared as mere bumps on the horizon from the landing site; climbed slopes up to 30 degrees as Spirit became the first robot to summit a hill on another planet; and covered more than half a mile (nearly a kilometer) after Spirit's right-front wheel became immobile in 2006. The rover returned more than 124,000 images. It ground the surfaces off 15 rock targets and scoured 92 targets with a brush to prepare the targets for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager.

The Mothership — the iconic stage prop made famous by legendary funk collective Parliament-Funkadelic — has been acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture where it will help anchor a permanent music exhibition when the museum opens its doors in 2015.

“I’m about to cry!” Parliament-Funkadelic frontman George Clinton said over the phone from his home in Tallahassee on Wednesday. “They’re taking the Mothership! They’re shipping it out! . . . But I’m glad it’s going to have a nice home there.”

It isn’t the original Mothership. This 1,200-pound aluminum spacecraft was built in the mid-’90s — an indistinguishable replica, Clinton says, of the smoke-spewing stage prop he first introduced to slack-jawed funk fans in 1976.

ROSEMONT, IL—Confusion and awkwardness resulted Monday when the P-Funk Mothership, outer-space chariot of Dr. Funkenstein and the Star Child, accidentally descended upon a sold-out Hootie and the Blowfish concert at the Rosemont Horizon arena in suburban Chicago.

"Thumpasaurus Peoples! You have summoned us through the Groove, and we have returned to refunkatize the planet!" said Dr. Funkenstein, the fur-bedecked, disco-booted Mothership Supreme Commander, moments before the popular South Carolina-based band was about to launch into the song "I Only Wanna Be With You."

Members of Hootie and the Blowfish, whose 1995 release Cracked Rear Viewsold over 14 million copies, were caught off guard by the arrival of the Mothership.

"The man who came out of the spaceship attempted to shoot me with something he called a 'Bop Gun,'" lead singer Darius Rucker told reporters. "Somehow I sensed it would be detrimental to my career as a singer."

Added a visibly distressed Rucker: "He also seemed to imply that if I let my mind go free, something would happen to my bottom."

The Onion piece ends with a comment that has since become a regular fixture of our lexicon:

"I did not wish to get 'funked up,'" said Roger Kleist, 33. "If I did, I would have attended a Dave Matthews Band concert.

24 May 2011

The Bernal GT is a collector's-car road rally organized by a few gents from San Francisco's Bernal Dads Racing team. The Bernal Dads are the same bunch that created the oddball Molvo hybrid Miata/Volvo race car for the 24 Hours of LeMons, so it should come as no surprise that the Bernal GT is a serious road rally that refuses to take itself too seriously.

The rally is not competitve -- it's more of a group ride than a race -- but it does have a few rules:

C) If you have kids 17 years or younger and/or kids in car seats, newer cars can be submitted for approval, No minivans or SUVs

This posed a problem for Telstar Logistics, because while we do have a car seat and a kid to go with it, we nevertheless drive a SUV. But the rules say no SUVs. We were about to propose the long-shot idea of seeking approval to reclassify our fake fleet-vehicle SUV as a fake "roadside assistance service truck" when one of the Bernal Dads announced that he was looking for a volunteer to help solve a problem:

"I can't attend the rally this weekend," he said. "But my car still wants to go."

The car turned out to be a sexy-looking 1972 BMW 3.0 CS, so Telstar Logitics offered to help. "Hell yeah," we said. "We'll drive it!"

Keys were exchanged and perfunctory instruction was offered, and everything worked out swimmingly. At the meeting point on Sunday morning, many of the 25 or so vehicles that showed up for the Bernal GT came with both vintage provenance and kiddie car seats — and young’uns to warm them.

The rally roster included two Ferraris, several classic Volvos, a rare Mexican-made Renault Dinalpin, a 1964 Alfa Romeo, a 1956 Jaguar, a DeLorean (sans flux capacitors), and one mutant Porsche 914 that had been the recipient of an engine transplant from a Subaru WRX.

The cars were very serious, but their owners thankfully were not, which may explain why we witnessed the spectacle of a pack of children pile into a Ferrari to gobble down a box of donuts. (Somewhere, Enzo Ferrari was spinning in his grave.)

As for the BMW, it was a joy to drive; it was poised and well-balanced, and the motor delivered plenty of torque with a deep, thoaty growl. Listen for yourself during this uphill section of the rally filmed from the passenger seat on an twisting uphill climb near La Honda, California while chasing Ben Buja's Volvo 124 142:

It was an excellent day, and here's the complete photoset if you want to come along for the full ride:

19 May 2011

A few weeks ago, during a "self-guided" tour of the waterfront in Oakland, California, Telstar Logistics wandered into headquarters for the new Bay Bridge construction project. Amid all the piles of construction materiel, one object stood out: A huge casting fitted with cable guides that was clearly intended to top-off the the bridge's new suspension tower.

TREASURE ISLAND (KGO) -- A final piece of the massive new Bay Bridge tower is being put into place Thursday. Crews will be working 500 feet above the water on a project that is so enormous it will make history.

The 960,000 pound cable saddle will carry the bridge's nearly mile long single looped cable over the top of the tower. The cable saddle is the largest in the world. Caltrans crews held a dress rehearsal last month for the project.

18 May 2011

Early on Wednesday 4th May 2011, in the skies above Mojave Air and Spaceport CA, SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial spaceship, demonstrated its unique reentry ‘feather’ configuration for the first time. This test flight, the third in less than two weeks, marks another major milestone on the path to powered test flights and commercial operations.

SpaceShipTwo (SS2), named VSS Enterprise, has now flown solo seven times since its public roll-out in December 2009 and since the completion of its ground and captive -carry test program.

This latest flight saw a 6:43AM (local) runway take off for VSS Enterprise, attached to its WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft, VMS Eve. At the controls of the of the spaceship were Scaled Composites’ test pilots Pete Siebold and Clint Nichols whilst Mark Stucky, Brian Maisler and Brandon Inks crewed the purpose built, all composite, twin fuselage WK2.

After a 45 minute climb to the desired altitude of 51,500 feet, SS2 was released cleanly from VMS Eve and established a stable glide profile before deploying, for the first time, its re-entry or “feathered” configuration by rotating the tail section of the vehicle upwards to a 65 degree angle to the fuselage. It remained in this configuration with the vehicle’s body at a level pitch for approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds whilst descending, almost vertically, at around 15,500 feet per minute, slowed by the powerful shuttlecock-like drag created by the raised tail section. At around 33,500 feet the pilots reconfigured the spaceship to its normal glide mode and executed a smooth runway touch down, approximately 11 minutes and 5 seconds after its release from VMS Eve.

Here's the video, which clearly shows the transition to and from SS2's feathered configuration. Amazing. The good stuff starts at around 01:50:

Just as NBC is jumping into the period-drama game of Mad Men with Playboy, so too is ABC traveling back to 1963 with Pan Am, the Jack Orman-created drama (directed by The West Wing’s Tommy Schlamme) about the flight crew of the then-premier American airline company. Starring Kelli Garner, Christina Ricci, Margot Robbie, Michael Mosley, Jonah Lotan and Karine Vanasse, the series depicts the professional and personal intrigues of the well-traveled flight attendants and pilots. But there’s also an unexpected espionage subplot that’s set just as the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia was beginning to heat up, which gives the show an intriguing narrative spine that’s about more than just hairstyle malfunctions and extracurricular activities.

16 May 2011

Inevitably, there comes a time in every parent's life when they are called upon by their progeny to explain the fundamentals of containerized transportation. For Telstar Logistics, that moment arrived about a week ago, when our junior executive (now age 3.75) asked about all the big metal boxes she's noticed aboard many of the big ships that sail in and out of San Francisco Bay.

Since it was Saturday, and we had nothing else planned, we piled into the fleet vehicle for a trip across the Bay, to the Port of Oakland, to watch the operation of a major container terminal first-hand. It was a very successful foray: We saw lots and lots of big metal boxes, of course, but also trains, and trucks, and ships, and giant cranes, and an assortment of weird machines. She enjoyed the tour, and we came away with a tidy collection of photos to show for the trip:

13 May 2011

Flickr user islaylike snapped this photo of pirate Jack Sparrow riding the 27 Bryant bus in San Francisco. Not only does Capt. Sparrow ride the bus, but notice that he also needs a transfer! No doubt to take a vintage F Market streetcar to meet his ship on the waterfront.

UPDATE: 16 May, 2011

Our friends at Muni Diaries got the scoop on the gentleman in the photo, as explained by the photographer. Turns out, he's Swiss:

This is a cellphone picture I took on Wednesday of my new friend, Sebastian Michellod, who stayed with me this week via couchsurfing.org. He is originally from Switzerland, but has been living in Central and South America for the past four years, traveling, making videos and documentaries. More recently, he has been dressing as Jack Sparrow, working his way north to try and meet Johnny Depp (who has been “impersonating him”). He just left for LA to catch the Los Angeles premiere of Pirates 4, and will also be in Las Vegas for another event. He is an amazingly kind and talented person, and I recommend that anyone meet him if provided the opportunity.